• The minimum hardware requirements are:
  • 8M Flash
  • 64M RAM
• Although the system can potentially support hardware with less resources, supporting them in 2021 is not practical any more.
• The hardware does not need a radio on it.
• Hardware without radios can be managed using APdesk.
• Mediatek and Atheros / Qualcomm SOC devices are supported.
• Other target systems are also supported but have not been thoroughly tested to date.
• If you are not sure if your hardware will work please visit the OpenWRT website and check. They have an ever growing list of supported hardware.
• Next we will look at the steps you need to take to get MESHdesk working with it.

These steps you have to do ONCE ONLY

1. Build OpenWRT with MESHdesk firmware (MESHdesk disabled).
2. Flash your device.
3. Prepare the wan_network file for specific device.
4. Prepare meshdesk config file for specific device.
5. Prepare captive_config.json file for specific device.

1. Build OpenWRT with MESHdesk firmware containing the device specific files for
   1. wan_network
   2. captive_config.json
   3. meshdesk
2. Flash your device with the final built of firmware.

• So without further ado, lets get going with the first draft built.
• In this page we will take an Open Mesh OM2P (first version) Access Point as a sample unit.
• You can use the hardware of your choice and simply apply the same principles.
• Make sure you followed these instructions to prepare the environment.

• Check out the OpenWRT-MESHdesk package from the SourceForge repository.

#Do this in the working directory e.g. cd 17.01.7
git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/radiusdesk/openwrt-meshdesk openwrt-meshdesk

• The package has three main components. Each one is located in a unique folder.

1. zzz-MESHdesk - This is the MESHdesk package which will be build by the SDK.
2. files - This is the override structure containing files to override during the build process.
3. luci-app-meshdesk - This is the Luci application used to enable central control.

• The zzz-MESHdesk folder needs to be copied under the package folder (openwrt/package).

#cd to the working directory
cp -R ./openwrt-meshdesk/zzz-MESHdesk ./openwrt/package 

• The files folder needs to sit directly under the openwrt folder (root level).

#cd to the working directory
cp -R ./openwrt-meshdesk/files ./openwrt 

• The luci-app-meshdesk folder needs to be copied under the feeds/luci/applications folder.

#cd to the working directory
cp -R ./openwrt-meshdesk/luci-app-meshdesk ./openwrt/feeds/luci/applications

• Since we added a Luci application, we need to tell the SDK about it.
• After you copied the packages across issue the following command:

#cd to the working directory
cd ./openwrt
scripts/feeds update -i
#Install the package to make it visible 
scripts/feeds install luci-app-meshdesk

• The result is that the MESHdesk Luci application will be listed as one of the available Luci applications.

• Select the following packages when building the firmware.
• Package names in bold are required.
• The Mosquitto packages are for MQTT support.
• The Batman packages are for mesh support.

• After you selected these packages you can save the configuration and issue make to build the firmware.
• The firmware you just built will be standard OpenWRT in effect and you can flash your hardware as with normal OpenWRT then access it on 192.168.1.1.
  • Username and Password is root and admin for Luci and ssh.
• The next section will cover the files you have to attend to for the specific hardware tweaks.

• Use ssh to gain access to the device in order to tweak these files.

• Refer to the default /etc/config/network file.

network

config interface 'loopback'
	option ifname 'lo'
	option proto 'static'
	option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
	option netmask '255.0.0.0'
 
config globals 'globals'
	option ula_prefix 'fd15:97e0:cb63::/48'
 
config interface 'lan'
	option type 'bridge'
	option ifname 'eth0'
	option proto 'static'
	option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
	option netmask '255.255.255.0'
	option ip6assign '60'
 
config interface 'wan'
	option ifname 'eth1'
	option proto 'dhcp'
 
config interface 'wan6'
	option ifname 'eth1'
	option proto 'dhcpv6'

• With this setup we have the POE port as LAN (The port next to the Power Jack).
• We also have the WAN sitting next to the antenna.
• This is not ideal for us since we want to feed power onto the WAN port.
• Next look at the /etc/MESHdesk/configs/wan_network file that is derived from it.

wan_network

config interface 'loopback'
    option proto 'static'
    option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
    option netmask '255.0.0.0'
    option ifname 'lo'
 
config interface 'lan'
    option ifname 'eth0'
    option type 'bridge'
    option proto 'dhcp'
 
config interface 'client_0'
    option proto 'dhcp'
 
config interface 'client_1'
    option proto 'dhcp'

• Note there are no switch sections. Please refer to the other Wiki pages on the convention to use if the network file has switch sections.
• client_0 and client_1 interface sections can always be kept as is.
• lan interface section is in actuality the WAN port. (This is due to the historical nature of the project and also that we support hardware with a single Ethernet port)
• Since we wanted the port with POE (eth0) as WAN we actually kept the membership of the lan interface as is (remember it is actually the WAN port)
• Next we will look at the /etc/config/meshdesk file and tweak it to work with our environment and our hardware.